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The GOP-led House will vote sometime today to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka health reform. They are not offering an alternative to cover the 30 million Americans estimated to be gaining insurance from the new law. They just want to express their displeasure with ACA.

The House's vote is purely symbolic since the Democrat-controlled Senate and President Obama will not allow the repeal to take effect. But if Republicans take the White House and win back control of the Senate, repeal is a possibility.

I'm sympathetic to critics of the ACA from both the right and the left. It arose from a political compromise and is unlikely to embody anybody's idea of perfect health insurance policy. But simply repealing the ACA without a substitute is unconscionable to me.

The pre-ACA health insurance system is an utter failure. It is wildly inefficient. The large subsidies offered through the tax break on employer-sponsored health insurance are enormously valuable to high-income people who don't need help paying for insurance and practically worthless to those with low incomes. It also favors large companies who can buy insurance cheaply and offer a tax-free fringe benefit to their workers over smaller ones that either must pay exorbitant premiums or forgo a valuable tax break.

Worst of all, for those unlucky people who do not work at a business that offers insurance and who get sick, it fails entirely. Yes, you can buy "non-group insurance" if you don't have disqualifying pre-existing conditions, but if you develop a chronic illness, you will face ever rising premiums until the insurance is unaffordable. Non-group insurance is also expensive, often with very high deductibles and limited coverage, so even people with insurance can face enormous out of pocket costs.

As a conservative economist once admitted to me in a debate on cable news, the non-group health insurance market only works for people who are healthy. He was okay with that. I was not.

Members of Congress and their staffs should experience the non-group health insurance market firsthand, starting in 2014. That is the first year that the ACA health insurance market reforms will be fully operational. Congress should pass a law that states that no member of Congress or staff member should be eligible for health insurance provided by the United States except on such terms that such insurance is available to all members of general public. In particular, Members and their staffs would no longer be covered by the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

To keep from cutting congressional pay, the amount the federal government would contribute toward their health insurance should be added to base salary. That way, if health insurance is available in the non-group market, they can use the additional salary to help pay for it.

If the ACA is allowed to stand, Members and staff will be able to buy affordable health insurance with no preexisting condition limits through the new health insurance exchanges.

And if Congress chooses to repeal the ACA, they will understand what people without employer-sponsored health insurance have to deal with. Admittedly, many Members would not be personally effected since they're old, and thus covered by Medicare; married to someone with health insurance coverage at their job; or really rich, and thus able to handle the cost of a serious illness.